{"id":6086,"date":"2026-02-18T11:29:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T15:29:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/experience.syracuse.edu\/the-peel\/?p=6086"},"modified":"2026-02-18T13:39:06","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T17:39:06","slug":"q-and-a-with-citrus-racing-president-dorian-baker-santoro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/experience.syracuse.edu\/the-peel\/2026\/02\/18\/q-and-a-with-citrus-racing-president-dorian-baker-santoro\/","title":{"rendered":"Q-and-A With Citrus Racing President Dorian Baker-Santoro"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Citrus Racing<\/a> is more than just another Recognized Student Organization (RSO) on campus. Citrus Racing is Syracuse University\u2019s student-run Formula Society of Automative Engineers (FSAE) team that works toward the completion of small-scale Formula cars to race every May at a competition in Michigan. Sydney Fontaine \u201929 recently sat down with Citrus Racing president Dorian Baker-Santoro \u201926 to chat about the RSO\u2019s major rebrand, their upcoming competition and how Citrus Racing is more than just an engineering club. Spoiler alert: you don\u2019t have to be an engineer to get in on the action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fontaine: For those who don’t know, what is Citrus Racing?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Baker-Santoro: Citrus Racing is an engineering-based club where we basically build, design, and fabricate a Formula-style car. SAE is the Society of Automotive Engineers, which is the collegiate division that we race under. Our club is oriented to blend concepts learned in the classroom with hands-on learning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fontaine: Citrus Racing recently rebranded. What prompted that decision and what changes came with it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Baker-Santoro: When I joined the team my sophomore year, it was very unknown. The team had at most 10 members just building race cars, meeting on their own time with no greater student body outreach. After competing that year and seeing much larger teams, we knew it was time for a change. Our rebrand was all about making the RSO more accessible for students. We started by fully revamping our social media, redoing our website and holding regularly scheduled meetings. Our RSO isn’t solely engineering; we have a fully operational business team and media team, so we encourage students to join regardless of their strengths. Since our changes, we\u2019ve expanded our team to probably about 100 active members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fontaine: What do you want first-year or non-engineering students to know about this team?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Baker-Santoro: Truly anyone can join us, regardless of background and experience level. We want to teach people as much as we want to build a fully cohesive vehicle; it\u2019s all about learning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fontaine: What is the most common misconception about Citrus Racing?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Baker-Santoro: We acknowledge that we are presented as an engineering-intensive RSO, which is true, but there is so much opportunity for those without an engineering background. A lot of our competition has teams double or triple the size of ours. Having an eager and dedicated team is crucial to having a consistent, successful program. We want to be seen as one of the best teams in FSAE and positively represent the University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fontaine: I heard you’re going to a competition in May. Can you tell us more about that?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Baker-Santoro: Yes, FSAE holds a competition every May, and we compete in the IC division, which stands for \u201cInternal Combustion\u201d\u2014basically a gas-powered car like you\u2019d drive every day. But the competition isn\u2019t just about showing up and racing. It\u2019s about proving that every single decision we made over the last two years actually makes sense. Part of the competition is presentation-based. We have to explain our cost breakdown (where we spent money, where we didn\u2019t and why) and also walk the judges through the entire design of the car, down to individual components, justifying all the engineering choices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next come the dynamic events, which are honestly the most fun. There\u2019s acceleration, skid pad (which tests how well the car handles tight turns) and autocross, a cone course that really pushes control and precision. The biggest event is endurance. It\u2019s a long autocross-style course that\u2019s the closest we get to actual racing. It tests fuel efficiency, reliability and how the car performs under real pressure. That\u2019s when we finally get to see if everything we\u2019ve worked on actually comes together on the track.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fontaine:<\/strong> What are you personally most proud of that won’t show up on a scoresheet?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Baker-Santoro: I’m most proud of the team members. They’ve taken on the responsibility of balancing their coursework with this commitment, in addition to their personal lives. They still find time to come in here every day and get the job done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Written By Sydney Fontaine \u201929, S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Citrus Racing is more than just another Recognized Student Organization (RSO) on campus. Citrus Racing is Syracuse University\u2019s student-run Formula Society of Automative Engineers (FSAE) team that works toward the completion of small-scale Formula cars to race every May at a competition in Michigan. Sydney Fontaine \u201929 recently sat down with Citrus Racing president Dorian…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":6112,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,184,34],"tags":[107,589,585,390,338],"class_list":["post-6086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-life","category-student-leadership","category-student-success","tag-be-involved","tag-q-and-a","tag-recognized-student-organization-rso","tag-rsos","tag-student-success"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/experience.syracuse.edu\/the-peel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/experience.syracuse.edu\/the-peel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/experience.syracuse.edu\/the-peel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/experience.syracuse.edu\/the-peel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/experience.syracuse.edu\/the-peel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6086"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/experience.syracuse.edu\/the-peel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6086\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6134,"href":"https:\/\/experience.syracuse.edu\/the-peel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6086\/revisions\/6134"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/experience.syracuse.edu\/the-peel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/experience.syracuse.edu\/the-peel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/experience.syracuse.edu\/the-peel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/experience.syracuse.edu\/the-peel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}